


the new world i

by eph_etc



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-17
Updated: 2017-03-17
Packaged: 2018-10-06 10:19:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10332413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eph_etc/pseuds/eph_etc
Summary: Draco remembers something, but not much





	

The wind whips sharply up the boulevard, eddies between the buildings. Snowflakes hang and swirl slowly in the light of the lamp over the stairs. 

He leans against the stairwell, brick chill at his back, and exhales a stream of smoke. Smoke and breath linger in the cone of the light--slowly stretch across the street and the chain-link fence, sprawling down into the dark construction site beyond. 

His fingers, curled around the cigarette, go from chill to numb. He tilts his head back, and looks up into the sky, clear and sharp, this winter night. 

\---

It's a bustle, it's a whirl--it's a clatter and shatter of voices. The room too hot, the air too close, and the excitement that comes from too hot, too close. All this energy enclosed into the brightly lit rooms, constrained by the chill glass and the cold night beyond it. 

The room is set to boil, candles floating in the air, and the whirl of capes.

Faces, he remembers faces, but not names. Not well. Not anymore.

\---

A dark desert country, mountains hulking high above the valley, and the star clear and bright above them. Sage and thistle blowing in the wind. He stands on the sidewalk, and looks up, past the shadowy pines. Wonders what it would be like to take to such skies. 

\---

They ask him for names, he remembers the desk, papers stacked neatly to the side. He keeps his head down, stares at the blotter.

Surely he must remember more than that. He shakes his head, he's said everything he knows. 

It isn't much. 

\---

Down the stairs, lit by occasional flashes of green light. 

The sound floats past him, by him, absorbs into the sound of his footfalls, the voices, the swirl of robes. 

He keeps his eyes on the stone of the wall, and the screams sink into him, and he sinks into himself until the world is stillness and haze. 

\---

They ask him what he did, what he could've done. He lifts a hand, and tries to explain that it was inevitable as water sinking into stone. 

He tries to explain about the strange aura of silence. There is silence before him, and he looks up, and sinks into the wall beyond.

\---

The night is passing, and there is work to be done. He stubs his cigarette, just shy of the curb, and turns. The light over the door just around the corner casts it's own haze across the pavement. 

It's a non-descript kind of door, wood painted gray, dusty steel handle, self-looking from the inside. He walks slowly towards it, hand brushing the frozen metal. 

\---

He won't forget the way she looked, when they walked past him into her cell, and he turned away. He won't forget the way she looked when she hung against the wall, contorted with pain--and he won't forget how he said the words over and again. 

And green light flashed from his hands, every time. 

He won't forget how he said another word with the next one, and he fell limp against the slick stone. 

He said, he remembers, head bent--voice far away, a haze around his head--that his desire overcame his sense. He begs pardon, but it isn't granted. 

\---

He remembers that, he tells them. No names, sorry, he hasn't got them. His eyes bend against the wall. 

\---

The key clicks in the lock, and he steps inside, into the hallway--linoleum floors, air thick with the murk of a few years of untreated mildew, snow melting from his boot onto the mat. 

Budget cuts, they say, under the previous administration. Who knows?

He pauses before the door to the offices, under the flickering neon lights. 

\---

His father, face alight with an external fire, tells him that everything is about to change.

\---

He passes the desks, scratched and scuffed, scattered ink stains on the wood facade covering the particle board. Absentmindedly, he pulls a pencil out of his pocket, and sticks it into the communal sharpener. 

The point is half-finished, a little raw. 

\---

When he saw them kneeling on the carpet, he knew that there was only one thing that mattered. So, he looked away, and sank into himself. 

\---

At some point, he sank into himself, past the desk, and then into the wall beyond--and then beyond that. 

\---

He opens his office door, and settles, a little haphazardly, into his chair. The computer screen hums softly in the half-dark. He rolls his fingers across the keyboard, and watches it glow to life. 

The clock shows half past midnight, and he supposes he is still waiting, for the fog to clear. As he waits, he might as well pass the time.


End file.
